Samson and Delilah

Liebermann's 'Samson and Delilah,' painted in 1902, is among his rare engagements with Old Testament narrative—a subject he approached with the same unflinching directness he brought to his social genre paintings. The Samson story, with its themes of betrayal, strength, and vulnerability, had a long visual history from Rubens to Rembrandt, and Liebermann's version brought the subject into the atmosphere of his own time—less theatrical spectacle than psychological encounter. The Städel Museum holds the work in its important collection of German modern painting.

Liebermann's vigorous brushwork translates the dramatic physical narrative into paint with characteristic directness—the contrast between Samson's powerful but vulnerable body and Delilah's composed, calculating presence conveyed through pose and the directional energy of applied paint.